"Finland and South Korea top the new league table, followed by Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore.

The global study, carried out by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) for education firm Pearson, used data from international tests, as well as data on school literacy and university graduation rates to draw up the index.

"The best performing countries attract top talent, train teachers throughout their careers and allow them freedom too" the report stated".

used data from international tests, as well as data on school literacy and university graduation rates to draw up the index.

University graduation rates would be meaningless in a korean context- everyone graduates Korean universities. Its regarded as the least you can expect for paying the fees.

International paper tests do not necessarily indicate knowledge or life skills that translate to real life.

Korea focusses on passing tests parrot-fashion but neglects other factors. It seems rare to encounter Koreans that enjoy learning for its own sake. Although certainly this country obviously has a very high literacy rate.

I presume that this takes into account how well teachers are compensated (in comparison to GDP per Capita, taking into account vacation time as well). I read that Korean teachers on average are paid 250% of GDP per capita whereas here in Canada it's just over 100%.

It couldn't possibly take into account teaching methodologies and teaching for creativity and problem solving.

Korea is expert at spin, of covering up its dirty underbelly and presenting a perfect fairytale facade to the outside world. It is a game the whole country is in on.

At the same time Korea seems to function as a sort of idealized paragon for the west, mostly because it is still a poorly-known blank slate and the media can write anything on it.

Thus governments exhort their citizens to "look how they do it in Korea' as some sort of airy fairy goal to aim for, knowing full well that nobody really knows what goes on in that far-off place and neither is anyone going to bother to fly there to verify things.

What a joke. Not a single nobel prize. Not even a nomination. Their entire modernity was imported wholesale from the West. Not one contribution to humanity's collective knowledge of the world. No inventions. Nothing.

That'll upset some Koreans, being only #2, after Finland nonetheless (people permanently pickled in Vodka)!

Still, an achievement to be shared with the USA, who got brain-drained by sending their best and brightest to Korea to educate, and suffered a drop to 17th place as a consequence (or is that up from last year?).

More seriously, competition is not won by discounting the winners' achievements, too many times I've been hearing the argument of "rote learning" versus "holistic education". It's as if the #17 (or #15) of the Olympic 100m sprint questions the purpose of running a short distance in a short time, then goes on saying that the winners most certainly suffer from sore feet as a result of their achievement.

If there's any meaning to this chart then certain nations now ranking in the double digits ought to be in the Top 5 or Top 10, and that should be a national policy.

Caveat: I didn't look up the criteria for the ranking. I would always include access to education and cost of education, but for a more specific view one might have a separate chart comparing only the elite top 10% of academic achievers, which would allow nations with high percentages of immigrants to fare better. I'm also disappointed but not surprised by the low ranking of my Old World birth country...

My grade six students can't even count to sixty. I'm teaching them how to tell the time and I was amazed that half of them couldn't count to sixty. And don't get me started on Korean 'English teachers' who can't speak English. Second best educational system in the world? I think not.

Not only that, but the oppresive method of teaching here makes people grow to hate studying and hate learning. This distracts from the true purpose of education - to foster a love of learning as a life-long process. When's the last time you saw a Korean adult reading a book?